Bequia2 Grenadines 27th Jan – 1st Feb

I know! I know!... I’m rubbish at keeping this thing up to date! We have been busy doing sunny stuff and enjoying the Caribbean. We spent longer than anticipated in Bequia and our initial plan of 10 days in the Grenadines has rapidly gone out of the window.

In Bequia, we saw most of the island using a taxi tour over two hours, sat in the back of a Nissan pick up truck while Terrence our driver gave us all the facts and figures.

We have also been SCUBA diving, clocking up another 3 dives with ‘Dive Bequia’ the local PADI centre, the best being the last dive, our first ever wreck dive over 'Devil's Table'. We didn’t enter the wreck but just going around and over this sunken trawler was absolutely amazing!

When we were not snorkeling our two favorite haunts are the Green Boley that serves the best boneless chicken Roti’s on the island (so we are told) and Jacks Bar on Margaret Beach where we often indulge in cocktails while the sun sets.

The rest of the time has been spent relaxing...

We have also taken the next step as ‘Sea Pikeys’ now baking bread and catching rain water in the dinghy cover. The water has a slight blue hue to it from the canvas so we only use it for washing up. Our best day so far yielded 25 litres in 4 hours (that’s some heavy rain) before we ran out of containers! For those interested:

Pressure Cooker Bread (1 loaf).
2 Cups Flour (general purpose)
1tsp Salt
1 tsp Yeast (instant)
150ml Water (room temp)

Mix dry ingredients, stir in water, knead, leave in warm draught free place for 1 hour, knead again and place in pan, leave 30 mins. Add approx 1 inch of water to pressure cooker. Place pan on trivet in pressure cooker so pan stays above the water. Bring to boil. Place on smallest burner at lowest setting for 25 minutes. Turn the loaf out and let cool & dry.

Bequia, Grenadines

We left Jalousie Bay around 6pm local time just as it was starting to get dark and strategically as the marine ranger arrived to take mooring fees. While a solid 15kn of wind was forecast we had less than 5kn and ghosted along at around 3kn for a few hours until we entered the St Lucia – St Vincent channel. With the wind and swell increasing to around 20kn and 2.5m respectively, we went from full sail to three reefs in the mainsail with a scrap of genoa!

The coastline was clearly busy with passenger liners lighting up the horizon. Apparently, they ‘circle’ and ‘waste time’ as they take passengers from island to island overnight to seemingly arrive in daylight. The Caribbean coastline is no place to be sleeping while single handing!

Due to various recent violent crime reports we decided to boycott the island of St Vincent and head straight for Bequia. As we cleared St Vincent around 6am local time we could see heavy rain squalls coming off the St Vincent mountains. The last 5nm across the channel saw winds to 32kn and short, steep 3m seas. These were the worst conditions Kat and I had ever encountered while sailing together (in Brighton), although strangely neither of us were even slightly phased, indicating how far we have come in terms of sailing experience.

We entered Admiralty Bay while being completely drenched by wall after wall of rain pelting us in the now 25kn winds.

This wasn’t exactly the picture of Caribbean sailing I had imagined!
As we approached nearer and nearer the shore we could see areas of mooring buoys and anchorage. I must be getting soft as we opted for the security of a mooring buoy yet again after we negotiated $100ec ~ £25 for three nights. Things were certainly made easier by name dropping Christian and asking for either ‘Phat Shag’ or ‘African’ in advance as these two characters are the official moorings boys.

Despite being completely knackered, we decided to have ‘breakfast’ of croissant and jam in the cockpit and then go ashore and clear in like good little yachties. As the sun made an appearance, it was hot work getting the dinghy off the foredeck and the new outboard fitted. I was however, grateful to not have to row for once!

Once ashore, we queued at Immigration for about 30 minutes only to be told you have to go to the Customs desk (4ft to the left) first; more queuing! When we were finally served, we handed over our ESeaClear reference number, only to be told once again ‘its not ready’; more paperwork! Finally we handed over our $70ec ~£17 cruising tax and headed out of the door. With our courtesy flag flying and paperwork stamped we were all legal and ready to start our adventure in the Grenadines.

Jalousie Bay, St Lucia

Setting off from Marigot Bay, we decided that a night crossing to Bequia in the Grenadines (about 60nm away or 11hours) would be best to avoid arriving in the dark. We sailed on south along the St Lucian coast for about 10nm and picked up a mooring buoy in the idyllic Jalousie Bay situated between St Lucia’s landmark Piton mountains in about 50m of water. We paid a boat boy $10ec for the mooring and purchased some bananas for the afternoon. After a light lunch we jumped overboard for a swim with Kat freaking out at the thought of 50m of water below her (and more importantly what may be living in those depths!).

Marigot Bay, St Lucia

The next day (Saturday 24th) we had breakfast and got the boat ready to sail for a lunchtime departure to Marigot Bay about 10nm miles south along the coast. This was one of those lazy sails under headsail (120% genoa). It was good to be out on the water again! On arrival, I attempted to drop the hook in the small anchorage to the left of the main buoyed channel as we’d already been accosted by a pimp-looking boat boy who’d told us it’d be $80EC (~£20) to use a mooring buoy for the night. Unfortunately, the anchor bounced its way back out to sea indicating a solid slab of rock, as I attempted to set it. With the wind gusting and a new rasta / less ‘bling-bling’ boat boy on the scene we decided to take the easy option and pay for a mooring buoy which was now being offered at 55EC (~£14).

While haggling over the price of the mooring buoy, it seems I one over the local (Peter), who later came over to the boat for a beer and a chat. He fessed up to his banter about supporting his kids etc being lies and gave us a gift of a woven fruit bowl and offered advice on being ‘careful’ around specific areas. It seems that crime is still a real problem in the Caribbean, especially with specific hotspots.

The next day we decided to check out of St Lucia and head for the Grenadines. We spent an hour the night previously completing the ESeaClear registration process online which is supposed to make clearing in and out of the Caribbean painless. Needless to say, on checking out we still had to complete all the paperwork by hand as the system is ‘not ready’. We also got charged $40ec ~ £10 ‘overtime’ as it was Sunday! Memo to self: Do not leave or enter a country on the weekend or public holidays!

Rodney Bay St Lucia

‘At last another post, what the hell have you been doing?’ Well, not a lot actually! Up to Friday 23rd I was still captive in Rodney Bay marina. I have been extremely busy socializing, sight seeing, drinking Piton beer, yacht racing and spending way too much money.

Highlights have been visiting hanging out with Matt, Pigeon island, the local ‘Jump Up’ (Street Party) and racing a J24 in the local weekend yacht race.

My debut in yacht racing wasn’t exactly successful in that out of the three races that day, we missed the first due to being hung over and late for the start. The second race we managed to make the start line on time but have the mainsail tear along the foot a few metres over the line that required some drastic make shift repairs, needless to say we came last. The third race saw us timing the start to perfection and leading the pack only to get completely lost and then not actually finish! Finally we ran the boat straight into the pontoon at about 4kn while mooring up!

Food is sooo expensive here, I guess because everything is imported. I wouldn’t like to have to victual a boat from here to head back across the pond or anywhere else further than a few days. Not having anything other than a photocopied pilot guide, I decided to invest in the Garmin G2 Vision Caribbean charts ($330US) for my plotter. While expensive, I am sure these will be a good investment especially when I get into shallow reefy areas like Tobago Cays etc. Also thanks to a new friend Christian, a St Lucian local, I managed to photocopy a full set of charts. He also got me discount on my next purchase…

Being in the Caribbean I though it was time to stop rowing and invest in an outboard. I am now the proud owner of a shiny new Mercury 5hp 2 stroke ($1100US). This meant that I have to find somewhere to store it onboard. Every store and chandlery had sold out of outboard rail brackets so it was a case of DIY. However, the parts to make such an item came to three times the cost of just buying one (~$80US). Just as we were about to fully commit and take saw to wood some total stranger (French) comes over and hands me an old wooden bracket for free! After some careful sanding I made it fit and got all the other parts refunded – once again the Gods are smiling on me!

Lastly I managed to get the mainsail all repaired and luckily the bill was only $150US.

Unfortunately, just as I refitted the mainsail and thought Doris was back in a ‘ship shape’ condition, Christian pointed out that the main large salon windows have decided to part company with the boat! I did notice some minor leaks on the Atlantic crossing after being clobbered by waves and closer inspection reveals that they have now completely delaminated from the hull. A phone call to Hanse later (as this is clearly a warranty job) and apparently this is a known problem with their boats in warmer climes due to the adhesives failing in the heat. Hanse are aware of it and are ‘working on it’ – Until a repair can be carried out it’s a job for good old duck tape, so watch this space!

Kat attacked the boat inside making it habitable again as it was a ‘little grubby’ after the crossing.

She also went over the hull with white vinegar to remove the three weeks (a.k.a months) of accumulated salt. Every service is available here if you have cash to spare. For a full boat valet (hull clean & polish, stainless and topsides) I was quoted $180US, a little too extravagant for me! I did however, splash out on the boat laundry service from ‘Mr Sparkles’. You call him on the VHF and he picks up and delivers direct to your boat whether in the marina or out in the bay at anchor!

With the boat at least clean inside and out above the waterline we managed to escape the marina on Friday afternoon (after 9 nights captivity) and it was a nice feeling spending my first night at anchor in over a month in Rodney Bay.

We slept well that night having both dived under to clean her bottom as best we could with snorkels, masks and scrubbing brushes.

ATLANTIC 6 - A Hero's Welcome!

Landfall Rodney Bay St. Lucia N14 04.43 W60 57.02
I won’t bore you with all the nitty gritty details of the final few days. Suffice it to say I was a complete basket case managing only about 4 hours sleep in total in that period. I think I actually got to the point where I was ‘trying too hard’ to sleep and simply couldn’t. Each night there were squalls to F7 and the seas were so steep and horrendous that I was ‘chained’ to the helm, in and out of consciousness.

I clipped into the cockpit to sleep on the floor close to the wheel and at one point after drifting off, woke suddenly to a crash of water as a huge wave broke right in the cockpit. One second all was quiet and the next, water shot straight up my waterproof trousers and I was sitting in about 10 inches of water!

It seemed that the closer to land I got, the worse the squalls were and the more frequent. The last actual day of sailing the squalls were pretty much back to back but by this time I was using them to travel as fast as I could by manually helming and going over 8 knots pretty consistently. They are so much less scary in daylight! I surfed waves all the final 5nm to round the island and enter the safety of the bay.

Kat had seen Doris come round the headland and called me to confirm it was in fact me, being about 4 hours ahead of schedule.

I dropped anchor in Rodneys Bay and for the first time in almost a month the boat wasn’t rocking from rail to rail!

Then I started to melt! – The heat was unbelievable! I had a wash and changed my clothes as I was in a pretty bad state! Kat’s friends bought her out to meet me in a RIB. It was so good to see her again and I gave her the biggest cuddle. She came bearing a ‘Goody Bag’ full of chilled chocolate, Champagne, Rum, fruit juice and all my favorite things.

She had arranged a marina berth for me in advance pointing out that it needed to be as easy and stress free as possible. I must have been pretty ‘out of it’ by this time because after getting the anchor up, I simply told her to take us in and let her berth Doris! All you guys in Brighton – I let Kat berth Doris! I didn’t even care that the depth read 0.0m about 50 yards from the berth… I was quite tired!

Matthias was also there to meet us and took our lines.

From that point on, I shook hands with person after person as the guy who just ‘solo’ed the Atlantic’. It seems Kat knows a lot of people here and had arranged a little ‘Welcome Party’ in the local bar for both Matti & myself. I satisfied my craving for Beef Burger & Chips and was then treated to a huge ‘slab’ of chocolate cake.

She is the best and it would have been all so different without having her there to meet me. I would have probably simply gone to bed in the anchorage. When I first set out, the whole goal was to simply sail across the Atlantic, but somewhere on the way across everything changed. I couldn’t care about the Atlantic and was simply looking forward to seeing her again – she really did make my arrival special. I know other ‘Single Handers’ (some of whom tune in here) who have made land fall and then felt so ‘alone’ on arrival because there is nobody to share the experience with. Not so in my case, I now have about 20 new friends!

I have a few jobs to get done now I am here including getting the mainsail repaired, her bottom cleaned (Doris not Kat) and anti fouled, and maybe some alterations to the cockpit design.

Kat has rejoined Doris, at least for a while and we intend to explore and dive the waters around various islands in the Caribbean. I’ll post more about the actual island etc very soon.

I would also like to say a huge ‘ThankYou’ to everyone who sent me SMS messages, jokes and words of encouragement which made the trip a lot less lonely and really did encourage me to keep pressing on as things got a little bleak toward the end of the journey. It’s really the best feeling in the world knowing that there’s friends ‘rooting’ for you and for that I am extremely grateful.

Atlantic 5

Day 14 – 09.01.09 Friday GPS ~95nm. N15 49.39 W50 13.74

As ‘TweetSister’ told me, the last miles are the longest and hardest. I have become obsessed with VMG or Velocity Made Good and can’t stand seeing all my speed being in the right direction. Whats the use of doing 10kn (as if) if they are in the wrong direction!
For example, I worked it out that if I am 30 degrees off of my rhumb line it will ‘cost’ me about 150nm. That’s another day! Therefore, I seem to spend a large portion of the day staring at the GPS and mumbling calculations to myself.

Being my own worst nightmare, it all had to come to a conclusion. I had been tweaking the sail trim and the Hydrovane to go lower and lower and we were almost dead down wind (gulp!). The VMG was well up there and we were romping home. I had been carefully watching it for over an hour before leaving the helm unattended (in Heidi we trust) and going below.

Laying there snoozing and BANG!, followed by a slow wallowing feeling as the boat comes to a standstill. Rushing on deck, I’m greeted with the mainsail backed hard against the creaking preventer line, we’ve gybed. It’s now blowing about 20kn (at least the mainsail is reefed!). A quick look at the cleat in the far corner of the cockpit before I commit and put myself in the firing line of the mainsheet traveler (cockpit mounted) and boom. The sail and traveler are both out to port.

Safely across and behind the helm, if anything gives now at least its only the mast or boom that’s coming down. It’s up to weather with the wheel to bring her nose right up to the wind while I slowly ease the preventer and everything (including me) creaks with relief as I haul in the 10nm of mainsheet (6 to 1) like a demented lunatic. Crises over! All very dramatic, but gybes scare the hell out of me…

Being head to wind and soon to be dark, I pop the 3rd reef in and carry on my merry way, about 30 degrees off the wind! The VMG was ‘winking’ at me all night!

Remember the ‘pretty white’ bird I saw circling the boat a few days ago? Well he’s been back, a few times actually. I have seen him most days since and I’m sure it’s the same bird. The last time was right in the middle of a squall and I could swear he comes by to check I’m ok. Maybe he’s stalking me? Anyway, where does he (and the other little brown birds – terns?) sleep?

Speaking of wildlife, I haven’t had any flying fish on deck for about 4 nights, maybe because the moon has been bright and they can see where they are flying? I hate going up to try and get them back in the water before they die (despite their brains being all over the cockpit – they fly quite fast), especially when it means getting out of bed!

I haven’t seen a single Dolphin, or any other fins for that matter. Even ships have vanished since the Open 60 on Day 8.


Day 15 – 10.01.09 Saturday GPS ~95nm. N15 57.36 W52 16.60

Today I am a new man, its amazing what a good nights sleep does for you. I awoke around 0700 (still dark) to the sound of ‘clicks’ over the VHF. I always leave it on channel 16 and turned up loud as I figure this will be called if I ‘meet’ another vessel while asleep. Anyway, sure enough from on deck I could see a ship (looked commercial) about 2-3nm away. More worrying was the fact that my VHF radio was constantly transmitting.

I am guessing the ship tried to call me but I am effectively ‘jamming’ the channel (Its supposed to stop automatically in the event of a stck PTT button). I turned off the ships radio and got out the handheld, all was quiet. Short story, it turned out to be the remote mic terminal I have in the cockpit has corroded causing a short circuit. I disconnected the remote terminal and no more problems. I had removed the actual mic some time ago as it was giving us problems. I wonder if it’s under warranty? In fact the main ships GPS plotter has also started playing up and ‘freezing’ the display. Typical, own things for a year and they start dying.

Another sleep then up again at 1000, the sun is just on the horizon. Special K for breakfast as all my cereal has now run out. I am raiding Lindsey’s old supplies. If that runs out I think Daz still has some old ‘squirrel food’ in the bottom of the cupboard.

Fancying something better for a second breakfast, I decide on a ‘cooked’. Unfortunately, all (15) my eggs have gone bad. I cracked a few but they were ‘watery’ and smelt a bit weird. Dates were for mid December so not surprising I guess. I finally settle on fried chorizo type sausages, boiled potatoes (no chips remember!) and beans. Three bloody pans! At least there is still some left for tonight as well.

The evening began (just after 2100) with me sitting in the cockpit listening to music, digesting my seconds of sausages etc and admiring the most amazing full moon I have ever seen. It was literally like an early morning sun it was so bright. The boats wake was lit up like some Godly path to the horizon.

Around 0100 the boat starts to round up and go off course wind with the increasing
wind which were forecast to reach ~25kn by 0600 in the morning. Genoa, pole all away and sailing quite deep on the 3rd reef we were back underway. In the moonlight you could see the clouds ‘scudding’ past as the weather started to deteriorate.

Just after 0300 the boat started to round up again and I took the helm . We were flying along at over 8kn as the squall started. It was actually quite fun having the appropriate amount of canvas up for a change. Then it kicked up a gear and things began to feel different. The noise through the rigging was horrific and the boat started to accelerate rapidly . Looking across, the sea had been blown completely flat as if it had been ‘ironed’ of all its creases. I am sure it was raining, but it may have been the top surface layer of water that was being ‘swept’ like dust from the sea through the air. I remember acknowledging 32kn on the gauge and telling myself aloud, ‘don’t worry about the direction, just don’t gybe us!’

The next thing we were hit with a gust that felt like a solid ‘wall of wind’. I saw the wind gauge spin a full 360 degrees, and with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach prepared for the gybe to end all gybes as I lost complete control of the boat. The needle settled with the wind on the beam.

I don’t think we gybed, mainly because I still had a mast! I think I threw the wheel to weather at the last moments mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else at that instant. There I was in that familiar scenario, boom straining against the preventer. Wheel over, preventer eased mainsheet in tight – just like we practiced!

A deep sigh of relief and then the adrenaline hit me like ‘a hit from the bong!’ and I couldn’t stop shaking. I now actually had some time to ‘admire’ the storm around me. I have been in a few F8s and one F9 (Day Skipper), but never seen such raw power as this. The whole top layer of water was flowing under the boat like a river in flood, if you went over, you would be gone in seconds I’m guessing. It’s only because I’m lucky to have a boat like Doris who will point around 30 degreees off the wind on just the mainsail or scrap of headsail with the wheel to weather that I could afford to take the scene in.

The wind had now eased to around 30kn and the waves passing under us were getting bigger by the minute. Plan ‘A’ of waiting it out were quickly turning to plan ‘B’, run with the wind due west! I tried to be cheeky and run with the mainsail still pinned in but I just got spun round to the opposite tack. I could have eased it out I guess but I didn’t want anything to do with a mainsail in those conditions that wasn’t in tight! I had to either stay put or get the mainsail down. On with the engine, unless I could get her luffing the mainsail would not be coming down without broken battens. Slowly increasing the throttle until her nose started to lift, I went forward and clipped into the 3rd reef, just as we went into ‘free fall’ off the top of the next wave – wow! That was scary! The (poor) mainsail looked like a dogs dinner by the time I had finished with it all tied up in bunches to the boom, at least it wasn’t going anywhere.

Hydrovane set for a few degrees off downwind, barely 1000revs on the engine and we’re making a smooth 5kn+. I had a short spell of euphoria as I sat back and we went in the right direction – west!,

In the meantime, the winds had dropped to around 25kn but the seas were still growing, very confused, steep and breaking. Not the biggest seas I’ve been out in but definitely the most dangerous.

I had a scrap of genoa up to dampen the boats movement and to give us some drive. Around 0500 I turned the engine off as the batteries were topped up and the genoa was providing motion. I set the Hydrovane to take the waves off the rear quarter and over sheeted the sail so that when a wave picked us up we rounded up over the crest instead of taking ‘the drop’ and surfing out of control. I was still standing at the wheel and I don’t mind admitting I was pretty scared as my shoulders were pumped solid from steering and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I was completely shattered.

Not wanting to be far from the wheel incase we caught a wave I wasn’t willing to go below and I wanted to keep the washboard in place incase we got ‘pooped’. In the end I clipped in and fell asleep on the cockpit floor like a tramp outside an off license door waiting for opening time. I managed to steal an hour’s sleep before being woken up by torrential rain as we were hit by the last squall, luckily not much wind this time. I stayed curled up on the floor – I love my Musto & Dubarrys!

I couldn’t wait for sunrise (much like the tramp I guess). The classic, ‘If he makes it through the night, he’ll pull through!’. It was around this time that the whole Single Handing ‘thing’ really hit me. Mid Atlantic, its you and only you, that has to face what’s dealt. Nobody to assist or advise or ‘take the wheel for a second’, complete self reliance. I coped and dealt with it. You always wonder if you will cope when your test comes, I guess that’s part of why we’re out here in the first place and I’m sure there will be much worse weather to come, but this time I coped.

Sitting on that floor and looking across at the black seas in the moonlight, I thought of the horror of what it must be like to be so ‘beaten’ that you have to resort to pulling that pin on the EPIRB or even worse taking to a life raft. I hope I’m never ever in that situation.

Anyway, you’re reading this and all is fine. Don’t worry mum – I’m still alive.

Last night I think I earned my right to be called a ‘Single Hander’ and of that alone I’m proud. Not to mention getting me some ‘Red Trousers’ when (IF – superstition!) I make landfall in a few days time.